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PHP 8.1 Composer Autoload Not Recognizing Namespaces in Subdirectories

πŸ‘€ Views: 35 πŸ’¬ Answers: 1 πŸ“… Created: 2025-06-10
php composer autoload namespaces PHP

I'm following best practices but I tried several approaches but none seem to work. I'm having trouble with Composer's autoload feature in my PHP 8.1 project where my class files are organized in subdirectories. I have defined namespaces that correspond to the directory structure, but it seems that Composer is not autoloading these classes correctly, leading to a `Class 'App\Models\User' not found` error when I try to instantiate the User model. Here’s how my directory structure looks: ``` project-root/ β”œβ”€β”€ composer.json └── src/ β”œβ”€β”€ Models/ β”‚ └── User.php └── Controllers/ └── UserController.php ``` In my `composer.json`, I have the following configuration: ```json { "autoload": { "psr-4": { "App\\": "src/" } } } ``` I already ran `composer dump-autoload` after making changes to the `composer.json`, but the error persists. Inside `User.php`, I have the following code: ```php <?php namespace App\Models; class User { public function __construct() { echo 'User model instantiated'; } } ``` And in `UserController.php`, I'm trying to use the User model like this: ```php <?php namespace App\Controllers; use App\Models\User; class UserController { public function create() { $user = new User(); } } ``` I've double-checked the namespaces and the directory paths, and they seem correct. I’ve also cleared the Composer cache with `composer clear-cache`. Could there be something I'm missing in my setup, or is there a specific configuration that I need to tweak for Composer to recognize classes in subdirectories properly? What am I doing wrong? Has anyone else encountered this?